New York (Update)

Since my last post, Marian has arrived and we've pretty much finished choosing everything for the apartment, with the last items arriving (hopefully) this week. It's all coming together really well. John has also turned up and we've now turned our focus to being tourists! Our first 'tourist' day we went down to the High Line and visited the Chelsea Market and Pier 57 nearby. Today we spent most of the day Downtown, right at the bottom of Manhattan doing one of my walks on the historic beginnings of New York. We also visited the 9/11 memorial, which was very impressive. Here's some pics:

Urban wildlife - a Red Tailed Hawk on West 78th Street....

Our street - nice light....

And why not.....

Turtles and Towers in Central Park....

Mexican meal on our 34th Anniversary.....

Luis (our building 'super') and his 85 year old father Juan, visiting from Cuba, painting our railings white - it's made a big difference and we're really happy with it....

Plant eats building on West 79th Street....

Brilliant idea for graffiti - how does he think of these things....

Terracotta extravaganza - on about West 80th Street....

Central Park has massive spaces - very impressive....

Eleanor Roosevelt Reservoir - original water supply for New York in Central Park....

Incredible Tiffany Lamp exhibition at the New York Historical Society at the end of our street - really amazing and spectacular....

Warhol supermarket shelves - plus the Little Mermaid!....

Finished painting - the white bits on the stairs and railings are new....

The new rug....patiently waiting for more furniture to arrive.....

Chelsea Market - mostly food of all kinds....

View from the rooftop garden of Pier 57. In the foreground is 'Little Island' which is a landscape architecture triumph. It's an artificial island on white concrete pods, with sitting areas, play areas, lookouts and so on. Very well done. Back left is Downtown with the One World Trade Centre the highest building. Back right is New Jersey. 

Same view - zoomed...

Edge treatment all around Little Island - very organic and interesting. Not sure you could do it in Australia without 8ft barriers and warning signs....

Looking down at the supports of the pods....

The High Line is nearby and is another landscape architecture triumph. It's superb and offers very interesting perspectives on the streets below. All the old rail lines have been incorporated one way or another....

The High Line starts at the 'Meatpacking District', which is so named because the elevated railway would bring goods (a lot of meat) into the upper levels of warehouses, from where goods would be distributed throughout the city....

Surprisingly wide former industrial street looking down from the High Line....

Branch lines from the elevated railway would veer off to upper warehouse levels - now let to go to seed naturally as part of the landscape....

Sitting area oriented to a view up 10th Avenue, which in the very, very far distance changes its name to Columbus Avenue (close to us)....

Interesting 'stacker' car park to 5 levels, next to the High Line - I'm not sure how it works as we didn't see it in action....

More eastern views down streets - note how green it is....

This is 'The Shed', which is a striking building which transforms itself by rolling! It can slide backwards to create an open plaza, or slide forward (as it is now), to create a huge exhibition space...

New station and shopping centre adjacent to the World Trade Centre....

9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Centre - each pool is the footprint of the original towers. It is a brilliant concept for the memorial and very well done....

Historic graveyard at Trinity Church (near Wall Street). Whilst it was built in 1846, it was the third church on the site - the first was in 1667 (the graveyard dates from that period)....

A huge line of tourists lining up to have their photos taken at the rear end of the Charging Bull statue at Bowling Green on Broadway. I kid you not. There is a separate queue to be photographed at the front - bizzaro!....

Inside the Customs House, built in 1904 on the original site of Fort Amsterdam (on the water - then - at the very bottom tip of Manhattan). It is now a museum of Native American culture....

Wall Street, with Trinity Church at the end. Half way down on the left (the shorter building) is the New York Stock Exchange...